Drawing Dead
by LithiumAddict
Summary: Sometimes, you've got to draw a hand even when it won't be a winning one. A ficlet collection.
1. Break Even Again

**TITLE: **Drawing Dead

**SUMMARY: **_Sometimes, you've got to draw a hand even when it won't be a winning one._

**RATING: **K+

**DISCLAIMER: **I just enjoy playing in other peoples' sandboxes. While making money off this would be nice, it's not happening. Everything you recognize (and maybe even some things you don't) belongs to Marvel.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **There's a bunch of short comicverse ficlets that my dear friends on LJ have inspired and prompted, most of which are on my blog and some of which were just sitting around on my harddrive. I figure that some of you out there might enjoy them. Hence one more collection of ficlets, rather like "Stacked Deck", only for the comic universe.

This one in particular is set just as the two of them leave the mansion for Valle Soleada in the X-Treme X-Men run.

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><p><strong>Break Even Again<strong>

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><p>They take Rogue's car when they leave the Mansion.<p>

It's awkward at the start. For the first day, they don't know what to say to one another, and let the music from the collection of burnt CDs he'd brought along fill the quiet.

It's that first night when things start to change.

For once, they can check in to a motel without having to request a room with two beds. They keep a fair distance between themselves, but wake up facing one another. They smile, tentatively, and he rolls out of the bed to make crappy motel coffee.

The space between them decreases each night thereafter – quite quickly, actually – until there's none at all.

In Iowa, they even spend one night in the back of the car on the side of the road.

(The kinks in their necks and the cramped muscles that result are deemed entirely worth it as they clean everything up the next day at the closest gas station.)

They develop a routine. She drives in the morning, since Remy's generally slow to wake up.

He drives in the afternoon, during which her left hand sits comfortably – almost absently – on his thigh.

They take it a day at a time, just like he'd said, and bizarrely enough, it's working out.

It's become_ normal._

And that, if anything, is the strangest part.

"So," she eventually asks. "Where to?"

Remy considers. It's not a question they've asked themselves yet. They've just been moving west, away from the Mansion and towards the sunset.

That question is the one they've been skirting this entire time. They've made progress, yes, but where the hell are they trying to get?

Remy braces his arm against the door and looks out the window.

"I hear tell California's pretty nice this time o'year."

Rogue nods, slamming down on the clutch and shifting up a gear. It's not a full answer, not really, but it's a direction.


	2. Broken Heart Open

**TITLE: **Drawing Dead

**SUMMARY: **_Sometimes, you've got to draw a hand even when it won't be a winning one._

**RATING: **K+

**DISCLAIMER: **I just enjoy playing in other peoples' sandboxes. While making money off this would be nice, it's not happening. Everything you recognize (and maybe even some things you don't) belongs to Marvel.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **This one was written for Mercedes, and has a small hat-tip to "Supernatural". Pretty much all there is to say about it.

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><p><strong>Broken Heart Open<strong>

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><p>They're on the outs again.<p>

(Bobby jokingly says it must be Tuesday; he thinks it's behind their backs, but both Marie and Remy know.)

She's moved into a room down the hall from the corner one they share. Shared. She's even sleeping pretty well tonight too for a change.

Well, _was_ right up until she hears the banging at her window.

She's absolutely certain who it is. There's only one person stupid enough to climb up the rickety trellis underneath her window.

Crossing the room, she cracks it open and lets him in. Marie crosses her arms. "I'd say it's good to see you, but that'd be a lie."

Remy brushes himself off leisurely.

"Now, now, that's not a real nice hello there, is it _chere_?"

His accent is thicker than usual, which means he's been spending time with one of his three good friends: Jimmy, Jack, or José.

"How much have you had to drink tonight, Remy?"

"I'm here wit' a peace offerin'," he says, withdrawing a bag of cookies from the depths of his trenchcoat and ignoring the question.

"Cookies?"

He frowns, setting them down on her dresser.

"What's wrong wit' cookies? You _like_ cookies."

Marie rubs at her eyes.

"Remy, it's just after three in the morning and you somehow figure this is the right time to pull something like this?"

"Look," he says, and it's a little frightening how quickly his face seems to have sobered up. "I ain't gonna say I miss you, 'cause you ain't gonna care. Hell, I don' even know if I do."

It would be a lie to say that the statement doesn't hurt.

"So what's this all about?"

His hand reaches towards her and she has no idea how to react. His fingers touch her wrist, lightly, tracing the linework of her tattoo there. He seems to remember the lines, even in the dark.

Instinct has her drawing her hand away, confused and maybe even angry. He draws his own back just as quickly.

"Enjoy the cookies," he says, and disappears. Marie walks over to the dresser and picks up the cookies after a moment of heavy breathing. He'd brought her Tim Tams. Chewy caramel Tim Tams.

She'd developed a taste for them back in Australia – that particular flavour, even - and knows it's a pain to get a hold of them here in the States. She fingers the package, and fights the urge to bite her lip.

Goddammit.


	3. He's A Wounded Animal

**TITLE: **Drawing Dead

**SUMMARY: **_Sometimes, you've got to draw a hand even when it won't be a winning one._

**RATING: **K+

**DISCLAIMER: **I just enjoy playing in other peoples' sandboxes. While making money off this would be nice, it's not happening. Everything you recognize (and maybe even some things you don't) belongs to Marvel.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **One more set in the X-Treme X-Men run. More specifically, just after the Vargas incident.

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><p><strong>He's a Wounded Animal, He Lives In A Matchbox <strong>

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><p>The problem, he thinks, is that he was so very close.<br>After years of self-flagellation and self-recrimination, he'd found grace. Each regret had begun to burn away as he'd walked towards that beautiful golden light. He had felt every shame start to melt off his bones.  
>Peace was right there. All he'd needed were those few more steps and he'd have met that salvation he'd always figured he never deserved.<br>Apparently, he'd figured right all along.  
>The next thing he knew he was waking up in a hospital bed. It didn't take him very long to realize what had happened, and what he didn't know he found out quickly enough.<br>So here he is in the garden, tossing cards and feeling the weight of everything more keenly, simply because he had known for a moment exactly what it felt like to have that weight taken away.  
>Three of clubs. Ten of hearts. Ace of hearts. Jack of spades.<br>They fly as easily as ever from his fingers, but just cut through the water before rising to the surface and floating there listlessly.  
>He keeps tossing and waits for that magenta blaze that isn't coming.<br>Seven of diamonds. Two of hearts.  
>That's when he hears her. He catches the sound of her footsteps before he actually sees her, just like always.<br>He looks up to see her coming through the greenery towards him. She looks tentative and moves like it too.  
>She takes a seat in front of him, sitting between him and the pond. There's about a third of a deck left in his hand, and suddenly even that feels too heavy.<br>She'll speak in a moment, he knows. She's feeling a weight of her own. In the meantime, he just looks over at the pond and watches the increasingly waterlogged cards drift.


	4. Best Laid Plans

**TITLE: **Drawing Dead

**SUMMARY: **_Sometimes, you've got to draw a hand even when it won't be a winning one._

**RATING: **K+

**DISCLAIMER: **I just enjoy playing in other peoples' sandboxes. While making money off this would be nice, it's not happening. Everything you recognize (and maybe even some things you don't) belongs to Marvel.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **A slightly happier one. Feel free to be shocked.

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><p><strong>The Best Laid Plans<strong>

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><p>The clothes she was wearing were ridiculous, but there was nothing new about that for her.<br>Her white sweatshirt was oversized, its sleeves hung loose, and her jeans were better described as a pair of denim culottes cut too long and too wide-legged.  
>And of course, he <em>had<em> to be sitting there a foot away in perfectly fit board shorts and nothing more.  
>She took some comfort in the fact that he wasn't some lounging bronze god or anything; he was almost as pale as she was, thanks to the fact that winter had been long, spring had come and passed quickly, and summer had come on strong. Thus, in some small way, she was avenged.<br>They were sprawled out on the sand of a surprisingly warm and surprisingly large New York beach, enjoying the dying rays of the sun.  
>A bottle of wine sat in that foot of space between them, resting neatly in a little nest of sand.<br>Sitting up, Remy took her glass and filled it up. This was fine. It was the hand-off that didn't go especially smoothly.  
>As she reached, he released a split second too early, and the wine was suddenly all over the side of her shirt.<br>"What the hell, Remy?" she shrieked, rubbing at the new stain as a matter of habit.  
>"Take the thing off then," he said, shrugging and laying back down.<br>She suspected he'd planned this. The slight, self-satisfied smile on his face (she caught it only out of the corner of her eye as she yanked the sweatshirt off) was certainly an indicator.  
>She'd have been lying if she said that removing it wasn't a relief. One further truth would be that she was honestly considering delivering some sort of arch retort, but the new situation served as a pleasant distraction.<br>She was wearing a one piece bathing suit beneath her clothes. It had been all but impossible to find one that didn't plunge low in the back, nor one that covered the majority of it. This was good in that it allowed her skin to breathe. It was bad in that it left her feeling highly exposed. Even though her uniform was clingy and designed to allow for circulation, it just wasn't the same as bare skin.  
>Marie was seated, knees tucked up to her chest and enjoying the balmy breeze. She blinked as she felt a slight pressure against her spine.<br>Fingers dancing lightly across her lower back, teasing the spandex, went on to trace lazy circles. A trail of goose bumps followed every curl.  
>Yeah. He'd definitely planned this. Especially the part where that wandering hand of his nearly found their way over the edge of her suit.<br>She moved carefully only to take up her fallen glass, and splashed the faint remnants of the wine in his face. The action was half hearted at best, of course, and he just licked at his lips with a grin.  
>Remy's hand remained in place.<br>She didn't tell him to move it.


	5. Collateral Damage

**TITLE: **Drawing Dead

**SUMMARY: **_Sometimes, you've got to draw a hand even when it won't be a winning one._

**RATING: **K+

**DISCLAIMER: **I just enjoy playing in other peoples' sandboxes. While making money off this would be nice, it's not happening. Everything you recognize (and maybe even some things you don't) belongs to Marvel.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **Written once upon a time for a friend on LJ, and presented for your edification here.

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><p>Sometimes, you don't get a happy ending.<br>The truly maddening part is how close Anna and Remy can get before it all falls apart into scream-shaped pieces. Mutual professions of love eventually give way to all-out, knock-down fights that are only on occasion physical confrontations. Stolen tender moments and almost-kisses become angry escapes from one another.  
>They are both fragile in the best and worst of ways. Each knows exactly what the other needs to stand tall, and each knows exactly how to shatter the other.<br>They get so close though. They get breaths away from a happiness that turns out to be nothing but a fall from whatever grace they've managed to find. Surely something so supremely unhealthy for the both of them should be easy to put down, if only due to instincts of self-preservation. They'll to break each other eventually and yet can't seem to leave well enough alone. This cycle repeats itself over and over, and they keep coming back for more.  
>"We are so unbelievably screwed up," she eventually tells him one night when they're trying to glue their pieces together.<br>"Y'hear me disagreeing?"  
>"So what? We just accept that we're a pair of sick masochists who can't get over each other or ourselves? We stick around and keep hurting?" She snorts. "What kind of a life is that?"<br>His arms snake their way about her waist.  
>"F'what it's worth, I wouldn't wanna be hurt by anyone but you."<br>She slides a little closer to him, resting her head where his neck meets his shoulder just beneath the collar of his trench. She can't help but feel exactly the same.  
>This will all fall apart. They will be left with nothing but a wreck that they will eventually repair and then destroy once more. They both know it. This is all they have though, and right now they sit there, bandaging the very wounds they've inflicted.<p> 


	6. Blackest of Rooms

**TITLE: **Drawing Dead

**SUMMARY: **_Sometimes, you've got to draw a hand even when it won't be a winning one._

**RATING: **K+

**DISCLAIMER: **I just enjoy playing in other peoples' sandboxes. While making money off this would be nice, it's not happening. Everything you recognize (and maybe even some things you don't) belongs to Marvel.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **Yet another piece from my LJ, originally written for vikingprincess. This one is set in "X-Men: The End", featuring a scene that I've been obsessed with ever since my first reading of The End run. Remy and Rogue's children are canonical in both "The End" and "GeNEXT" - both of which are written by Chris Claremont. If you don't mind his writing and haven't tried these, then check them both out.

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><p><strong>The Blackest of Rooms <strong>

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><p><em>"Kiss me, Remy."<br>"Please don't go, Anna, please don't go, please, please, please -"  
>"A real kiss, damn you. One...last...time..."<em>

Her body is limp in his arms, and the sort of tears he'd never thought he'd ever have to shed are still falling. They're X-Men, dammit. They write their own endings - it's the _rule_, it's always been the rule - and this was not supposed to be theirs. He and Anna were supposed to raise Bekka and Olivier in Valle Soleada. They were supposed to finish the vaguely white picket fence existence they'd started. They were supposed to watch their kids grow up. The two of them were supposed to end up with grandchildren to spoil rotten. They were supposed to grow old together and live happily fucking ever goddamn after.  
>He's clinging to his wife's corpse though, and those dreams died with her.<br>Then it hits him.  
>He was right. They're X-Men. They write their own endings, and he realizes what his is going to probably be, for better or for worse. His plan is crazy and it's probably stupid beyond stupid, and God, does it ever hurt, but he can't think of any other way.<p>

_"And your children, Remy?"  
>"Dey never met their gramma. Anna's gift to you, someone to live for. No more lost causes, Mystique. Just a family - a real future. 'Kay Mom?"<br>"Good-bye, my son."_

If his plan goes South, if it does end up as suicide by villain (and it probably will), he prays that Bekka and Olivier will understand. This is as much for them as it is for anything or anyone else. He doesn't want them to have to live in the sort of hell that the world is becoming. If he can give them a life where they don't have to fear Sinister (dead, thank God and all the powers that be) or death at the hands of any of the sick bastards who have declared all-out and frighteningly successful war on the X-Men and the world at large, then the sacrifice will be worth it.  
>The kids will have to understand. They'll need to. The thought that they might hate him for this aches, compounding the pain that he's already in.<br>He knows that Raven can and will take care of them though. She'll make sure Bekka and Olivier know the absolute truth about their mother and father. Truth be told, they'll probably be the safest kids on the face of the earth while under her care. He'd wheeze out a laugh if he could - it's funny; the woman who years ago he would have had no compunction about attacking is now the trusted grandmother of his kids.  
>His ending though. His ending.<br>He's going to absolutely _wreck_ the Shi'ar and the slavers. He'll help bring the empire to its knees, give the X-Men a fighting chance, and even if it means he's not coming back, there is no power on earth that is going to stop him.  
>This is for the world that he has saved more times than he can count. This is for the children he would give absolutely anything for, no questions asked. This is for his lost wife.<p>

_Hang on, Anna, he thinks grimly. Like as not I'll be along soon._


End file.
